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Dr Amanda Edmondson

Biography

Amanda joined the University in June 2016 as a Research Fellow based in the Centre for Applied Research in Health at the University of Huddersfield.

She is an experienced mental health and health services researcher with a particular interest in mental health and wellbeing. She has undertaken research related to mental health as well as other health conditions. For example, in 2013 Amanda successfully completed an ESRC funded PhD entitled ‘Listening with Your Eyes: Using Pictures and Words to Explore Self-Harm at the University of Leeds. The PhD featured three different studies - 1) a systematic review of functions of self-harm (see publications); 2) a primary study which explored people’s experience of self-harm using photo elicitation (in preparation), and 3) an internet based study which explored the visual content of images posted on blogs tagged as self- harm. Amanda has also been involved with research projects which have focused on other sensitive topic areas such as cancer, suicide and Alzheimer’s disease (see publications).

Amanda’s first post-doctoral research position involved leading a multi-centre psychological wellbeing study in teenage and young adults diagnosed with cancer at the University of Leeds. Since then she has led phase 1 of a multicentre randomised controlled trial which qualitatively explored treatment choices for patients diagnosed with non-invasive high grade bladder cancer. During this post she completed a systematic review of the effects of bladder cancer from the patients’ perspective (submitted). She is now project manager for the multisite Randomised Evaluation of Sexual Health Promotion Effectiveness informing Care and Treatment (RESPECT) NIHR HTA funded feasibility trial (see Research & Scholarship section for further information).

Methodological Experience / Interests:

Amanda has experience of using quantitative and qualitative methods in applied health research, and is experienced in qualitative analysis. She is particularly interested in using visual methods to explore sensitive topic areas and engage hard to reach populations in research.

Journal / Peer reviewing:

Amanda reviews manuscripts for the Journal of Criminal Behaviour and Mental Health and Qualitative Methods in Psychology (QMiP) Bulletin

Membership of Professional Body:

Amanda is a Chartered member of the British Psychological Society (CPsychol).

Research and Scholarship

University research group memberships

Amanda is currently a member of the Institute for Research in Citizenship and Applied Human Sciences and the Centre for Applied Research in Health. Amanda is also a member of the Human and Health Sciences School Research Ethics Panel (SREP)

Current Research:

Amanda is a Research Fellow on the RESPECT study, led by Professor Liz Hughes and funded by the NIHR. The RESPECT study aims to develop new ways to help people with serious mental illness to consider their sexual health and help them to access the right kinds of help to improve this. Amanda’s role is to manage the participating NHS sites based in the North of England.

Previous (selected) Research Experience:

Oct 2015 – May 2016, Research Fellow, University of Leeds, Institute of Health Sciences

Lead for qualitative phase of a multicentre RCT which aimed to investigate treatment choices and decision making processes for non-invasive high grade bladder cancer, funded by Yorkshire Cancer Research

Assisted research groups and local principal investigators in assessing feasibility and recruiting to clinical trials and other NIHR portfolio studies. Supervised clinical research officers

Oct 2009 – April 2013, University of Leeds, Institute of Health Sciences

PhD: Listening with your eyes: Using pictures and words to explore self-harm, funded by the ESRC

August 2003 – October 2005, Research Assistant, Institute of Psychiatry

Assisted on a longitudinal study examining psychological morbidity following witnessing suicidal behaviour whilst incarcerated in a male young offender’s institution.

June 2002 – March 2004, Research Assistant, Institute of Psychiatry

Assisted on two projects simultaneously 'Late Onset Alzheimer's Genetic Resource's and Biomarkers of Alzheimer's disease whose aims were to find a biological marker for Alzheimer's disease.

August 2001 – February 2003, Research Assistant, Royal Holloway University

Assisted on a qualitative study which explored clinical decision making in the treatment of lower back pain in the absence of improvement

Research Interests:

Amanda is interested in applied mental health research. She is particularly interested in using non-traditional research methods with hard to reach (engage) populations.

Other:

Amanda has extensive experience in the NHS ethical review process; in setting up and conducting research in the NHS and working jointly with Trials units, and collaborative working with patients and the public in designing and delivering NHS research.